


follow the light that i deem the brightest

by highhopes



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: AU, Angst, Famous Harry, Fluff, Getting Back Together, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-23
Updated: 2019-09-29
Packaged: 2020-09-24 18:00:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20362717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/highhopes/pseuds/highhopes
Summary: AU. In which Louis hasn't heard from his ex in years and finds himself suddenly unable to stop hearing songs about himself on the radio.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Wow. I really never thought I'd be back here, years later, posting another story about these two, but my passion for writing seems to have come back, and after reading back (and deleting most of) my old works I decided to give it another go.
> 
> Starting off with the boring disclaimer. This is, obviously a complete work of fiction, I do not know any of the people in this story and am not claiming that any of the events of this story are real. Please do not send this story to anyone who appears in it, or their family or friends! It's all just a bit of fun.
> 
> (Title is from Always Like This by Bombay Bicycle Club)
> 
> On that note, I really hope you enjoy this story and can stick with me as I work ridiculous hours in order to live while trying to write this on the side, not entirely sure how long it's going to be as of yet, but I'm hoping for quite a lengthy one this time around. Huge appreciations to anyone who sticks around with me until the end, whenever that will be. Happy reading!
> 
> r

The first time Louis hears the song on the radio, he almost crashes his car.

It had been a long day at work, and he was currently stuck in traffic on the motorway. All he wanted to do was go home, have some dinner and get into bed. Maybe he'd even run himself a bath, he felt like he deserved it after the day he'd had. But nontheless, the traffic was still moving at a snails pace and Louis was starting to accept his fate. He was going to be stuck here forever. 

Turning the radio up slightly, he tried to ignore his stomachs insistent rumbling and started humming along to whatever pop song was playing as he continued to move forward inch by inch. He get's a bit distracted by a dog hanging out of the car window next to his, he almost misses it when they say his name.

"Next up, we've got Harry Styles latest single to play for you, this ones called 'Two Ghosts'" the radio host says through his car speaker. Louis feels like he should be used to this by now, hearing his ex-boyfriends name everywhere he goes, after four years. He knows he probably never will be. When Harry had auditioned for the X Factor five years ago, Louis had known he was good, he knew he could make it. He'd never quite realised how big he would make it though, he never expected him to be in one of the biggest boybands of this generation. He never would have expected that only a year after The X Factor, he'd be selling out world tours and travelling places Louis had never even heard of before. He hadn't expected to have to share him with the world.

They'd made it work for a while, they'd keep in contact as much as possible, Louis would fly out to visit him every now and then. It was fun, getting to see all these new places he'd only ever dreamed of going, getting to see his boyfriend perform infront of huge crowds every night, seeing how much they loved him. Seeing how much Harry loved it. But it was hard. Finding the time to see each other got increasingly difficult as Harry got more famous. Louis couldn't keep taking time off work to go visit, they were almost always in completely different time zones, going days on end without even having time to have a conversation with each other without one of them being asleep or busy with work.

It took them longer than it probably should have to finaly end things, both of them clinging on to a relationship that they both knew was crumbling, but in the end there was nothing else they could do. Harry moved to LA and Louis stayed in London for his job, and that was that.

Louis had never had any had feelings towards Harry for the way things turned out, he would have never wanted Harry to give up on his dream to make their relationship work. But he does sometimes still wonder if they would have still been together now if things hadn't worked out with Harry's career. He doesn't think about it much, he hasn't even heard from Harry in three years, but hearing his name everywhere he went, it was impossible to never think of the boy.

After the announcement of his solo career, the world only fell more in love with Harry Styles. He was making the music he truly wannted to be making now, rather than the pop songs he'd been singing with the band for four years. Now he was writing all of his own stufff, and the people loved it. He'd only released one song from the album so far, and Louis had managed to avoid it pretty well. He didn't know why he was scared to listen to it, he'd heard him on the radio before. There was just something about Harry writing his own music now made it more genuine. More Harry, the Harry he knew. It felt too much like a reminder of what he once had, who he once knew.

As the song started playing, Louis moved to change the radio station while he continued slowly moving forward in the traffic, not quite ready to hear it yet but cut himself short as he heard Harry's voice coming through the speaker. He'd always known Harry's voice was incredible, and never doubted that he would be an incredible songwriter too, but something about the lyrics made him stop his movements completely. 

He was only shocked into moving again when he heard a car horn from behind him, making him realise he'd stopped moving his car. He snapped out of it, quickly closing the space that had formed between him and the car in front, and turned off the radio completely.

By the time he got home, he curled up in bed and went to sleep, dinner completely forgotten.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry this chapter is so short, longer updates will definitely come in the future, I just wanted to get the general plot of the story out there before I completely got into it. Bit of information that hasn't been mentioned yet, the band consists of Harry, Niall and Liam! Zayn works wiith Louis. Anyway! I really hope you enjoyed this chapter, more coming soon! 
> 
> PS, I promise I know how to write things where neither of the two are famous, this idea just came to me and I couldn't help myself.
> 
> r


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another chapter! Really short again, sadly, but I just really wanted to get a bit more out there and I’ve been busy with work, but the next one should (hopefully) be longer. 
> 
> r

The entire week following Louis' first time hearing the song, it's as if Harry has completely taken over his life again. It's on the radio every time he gets in his car, every time he checks twitter all he sees is people anxiously anticipating the rest of the album, the girl who has the desk next to his at work was has been humming along to it through her earphones for the past three days.

Everywhere Louis looks, there's Harry. There's that song.

He'd spent the first couple of days trying to convince himself that it wasn't about him, that it was ridiculous to even think that it would be. He and Harry haven't been together for over three years, Harry was bound to have had meaningful relationships that could have easily influenced the song.

It was Zayn who eventually brought it up to him one day, his car was in for a service so Louis had offered to give him a lift home from work, being the great friend that he is. They'd been chatting away about their day and how work was going and how long they thought it would take the new girl to realise that their boss is a dick, when the song started playing through the radio in the background. Louis quickly moved to turn it off, hoping Zayn hadn't heard it yet or wouldn't notice. He didn't really want to talk about it.

"You've heard it then?" Zayn asks, watching Louis carefully. Not a lot of people know about his past relationship with Harry, not his current friends anyway, people had known when they were at school but he never kept in touch with them anymore, but Zayn was there through it all. After school, all of his other friends went off to college or uni, trying to do bigger and better things with their life, but Zayn had stayed, and theywent through one too many awful jobs until Zayn found the a semi-decent office job, he'd gotten Louis a job there too within the month and they're still there today.

"Not really” is all he says in return. Zayn has always been one of the only people that Louis could talk to about anything, he'd trust him with hhis life and never have a single doubt about it, but he's always hated talking to him about Harry since their break up. He hates the way that every time someone mentions his name around them, he turns to make sure Louis is okay, every time they talk about him it's like he's walking on eggshells, trying not to say the wrong thing, Trying not to break Louis' heart again.

He knows that he's just looking out for him, and Louis appreciates it so much, he really does. But after three years, he's past the stage of bursting into tears at the mere mention of his name. Sure, it hurt at the start, but the pain stated to heal over time. And yeah, maybe he does still wish that they had what they once had, but he's not one to get too hung up on the past. Usually.

Zayn just nods quietly, letting Louis change the station until he lands on a song he deems worthy of stopping on. He looks like he wants to say something, but he doesn't and Louis tries not to get too annoyed by it for the rest of the short drive back to Zayn's flat. It's not until he's getting out of the car that he speaks up again. "You should listen to it."

Louis sighs, shaking his head a little "I'm not really sure, seems a bit overrated" he says, trying to lighten the mood a little. 

"You know it's about you, right?" is all that Zayn says in reply and Louis tries to hide the way it makes his heart race. He's not entirely sure what it is about having a song written about him that makes him so incediblely nervous, as if everyone in the world is watching him. He’s even one hundred percent sure that the song is about him, he hasn't listened to the whole thing.

He had tried to listen to it, the morning after he'd first heard the first few lines of the song he'd woke up with those first few lines stuck in his head. It was all he could think about, he'd heard Harry's music before, when he'd been in the band, but he'd never heard anything that sounded like it could have been about him. He'd thought he was getting a bit ahead of hhimself, he'd only heard the first few lines, it could really be about anyone. So he'd searched it up and tried to listen to it again, he didn't even make it half way through before he'd had to turn it off.

"I've heard it's about Taylor Swift" He knows it's not true, he knows that Zayn knows it's not true either, but it seems to be the only thing the world can talk about right now.

"Oh, come off it, Lou. You know that's not true at all" He opens the door to the car then, stepping out and onto the pavement outside of his flat. He turns back to Louis just before he shuts the car door. "Please just listen to it, yeah? It's.. It's a really good song"

Louis doesn't really know what to say, so he just gives him a small smile and nods his head up towards his flat. "Come on, get out my car, I've got dinner to make" he says playfully. Zayn leaves it at that, turning around and heading up to the door as Louis drives away. By the time he gets to the end of the street, the song is playing again. He doesn't turn it off this time.

-

His life doesn’t drastically change after he’s heard it. He’s not really sure what he was expecting, but nothing changes. He wakes up, he goes to work, he watches shitty Netflix shows, sees his friends on the weekends. The world doesn’t turn upside down, no one stares at him when he walks into work the next morning. No one notices anything is different. Except it is, somehow. 

Louis would be lying if he said he never thought about Harry anymore. It’s impossible not to, with his face plastered all over the news constantly and his name always on everyone’s lips. Of course he still thought about him, but he stopped letting it get to him years ago. He’d moved on. 

It was harder to ignore him after hearing it though. The way Harry had spoken about him; the way Louis’ heart had sped up listening to the words he had wrote. He couldn’t stop thinking about Harry. How things could have been different

His world doesn’t crumble after he hears the song, but his heart certainly does. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you think! 
> 
> r


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry it took me so long to update this! I’m trying to aim for once a week or at least have longer updates if it takes me longer but I’ve been so busy with work that I haven’t managed to write much, so it’s another short one so people don’t lose interest (if people are even interested in the first place)
> 
> \- r

No matter what Zayn seems to think, Louis thinks there’s absolutely nothing out of the ordinary about the way he starts acting for the next few weeks. So what if he orders a couple more takeaways than he usually would? Or purposely ignores any phone call he’s sure isn’t an emergency? He’s always done that, right?

Zayn doesn’t seem to agree though, and that’s how Louis finds himself sitting in a booth in the corner of a crowded club, half empty glass in front of him and Zayn going’s on about how great of a night they’re going to have. He’d been hesitant to come out at first, the thought of sitting on his sofa all night watching old reruns of Friends sounded much more appealing than having to make himself look presentable for a crowd of rowdy drunk people, but now that he’s here, it hits him just how much he’s missed this.

”Let’s get shots” he shouts over to Zayn, quickly downing the rest of his drink and walking towards the bar, Zayn following close behind him. He orders four shots of tequila as soon as he gets to the bar, skilfully making his way past the crowd quickly, before turning back to Zayn.

Zayn pats him on the back, handing his money to the bartender before Louis gets the chance. “I’m glad you agreed to come out, mate. I’ve been worried about you” he says, taking his two shots quickly as Louis follows suit, only wincing slightly as the alcohol burns his throat. 

“I’m glad, too. No need to worry about me though, lad” he replies, pulling Zayn towards the dance floor before the conversation can continue. He really is glad he decided to come, despite trying to tell himself that he’s been fine the past few weeks, he knows he’s been acting a bit off. Getting drunk seems to be working a charm so far. “Forgot how bloody expensive drinks are though, better help me find a boy to buy me some.”

Zayn just laughs, letting himself be dragged onto the dance floor even though Louis knows Zayn hates dancing in night clubs. He’d do anything to keep Louis happy right now, Louis should really start showing him how much he appreciates him.

He ends up dancing with Louis the whole night, occasionally pointing out boys that he thinks Louis might be interested in. He’s usually right, but Louis is pretty content to just have a good time with his best friend tonight, dancing like idiots and feeling happier than he has in weeks. He’s finally starting to feel like himself again.

-

He definitely doesn’t wake up feeling the best he has in weeks. In fact, he wakes up feeling more shit than he has in years. He’s not the partier he once was, it seems, as he lifts his face off of his pillow and groans as the light from the bedroom window attacks his eyes. His bones feel stiff and his head feels like it’s ready to explode. Zayn must have got him home last night though because there’s a glass of water and some paracetamol sitting on his bedside table that drunk Louis would have never thought to have gotten out himself.

He quickly takes the tablets and downs the rest of the water, picking his phone up and squinting at the brightness before sending a quick thank you text to Zayn. It’s almost noon, so it would probably be best for him to get out of bed and shower, but it’s a Sunday anyway and he doesn’t have work until tomorrow so he figures he can laze around a while longer and scroll through Twitter.

He scrolls through, deleting his drunk tweets from the previous night and retweeting a few funny tweets he finds before stumbling upon a tweet that makes him stop in his tracks. 

_“Imagine Harry Styles writing a full album about you. I hope whoever this girl is knows how lucky she is.”_

He’ll blame the way his stomach churns after reading it on the alcohol later. Part of him wants to scroll right past, act like he didn’t see it and continue watching funny videos, but something makes him click on the profile to see what it’s all about. It doesn’t take him long to a link to an interview that hand apparently been released when Louis was too drunk to care. He clicks on it hesitantly, almost closing the browser a few times before it eventually loads.

It starts out pretty much the same as all the other interview Louis has seem. Not that he’s seem all that many. It takes him a while to get to the part that the tweet seemed to be talking about. The bit about him. 

“Let’s talk about your new single, Two Ghosts. Everyone wants to know who the inspiration was behind such a beautiful song” the interviewer says with a smirk on her face, like she already knows that whatever the answer happens to be, it’s going to make headlines.

Harry only looks slightly uncomfortable from where he’s sitting across from her, playing with his fingers while he answers. “It’s uh - it’s about a past relationship, one that meant a lot to me. Still does.” is what he eventually says, huffing out a small laugh at the end. 

The interviewer tries to pry more information out of him for the next few minutes, but Harry doesn’t budge much, only halfheartedly answering her questions.

”Does she know that the song has been written about her, at least?” She eventually asks, having given up on trying to get a name out of him.

”I actually have no idea,” he replies “I haven’t spoken to them in a few years actually, but I really hope so.” Louis tries to ignore the way his heart skips a beat. Part of him had always known it was about him, but hearing Harry confirm it, even if no one else would understand, makes his stomach twist. He’s not sure what it means.

”So can we expect any more songs about her on the album, then?” 

“They’re a huge part of the album” Harry answers softly. “Sometimes you want to tip the hat and sometimes you just want to give them the whole cap.. and hope they know it’s for them.”

The interview is wrapping up now, on the screen they start talking about how the album is out next week, encouraging fans to preorder it, but Louis can’t hear any of it over the way his heart is beating out of his chest. He closes the browser and turns his phone off altogether. He feels even more hungover than he did when he first woke up and it’s past noon by now, but he closes his eyes anyway and tries his hardest to go back to sleep. A few more hours can’t hurt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed it even if it wasn’t as long as I hoped. Let me know what you thought!
> 
> \- r


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Admittedly not my best work as I am extremely sleep deprived but on the bright side, I actually updated in a decent amount of time AND it’s my longest chapter so far!
> 
> Hopefully you enjoy it.. we’re starting to get somewhere..
> 
> \- r

Three days before the album comes out, everything goes to shit.

Louis wakes up an hour before his alarm is set to go off from his phone buzzing on his bedside table. It takes him a few minutes to bring himself to even look at it, praying to God that he hasn’t slept in and is late to work. It’s not until it rings again that he starts to worry that it might be an emergency.

It isn’t even a number that he recognises, and the clock is reading 7AM, so he’s almost about to put his phone down and go back to sleep when he see’s that he has a million missed calls and texts from, well everyone really. His mum, his sisters, Zayn, people from work. 

Confused, and suddenly a lot more awake than he was before, he opens the ones from his mum first. All it says is “_Are you okay? Call me back asap”_

It makes him absolutely none the wiser whatever the fuck is going on, so he moves onto his texts from Zayn. His just reads “_what the fuck is going on” _which really doesn’t make Louis any the wiser, but it was sent three minutes ago so Louis calls him.

It takes Zayn two rings to answer.

”Shit, mate. Are you alright?” he says down the line. He seems worried, it makes Louis worry before he even knows whats happening.

”I just woke up to my phone blowing up.” He replies, clearly confused. “I’ve no fucking clue what’s going on.”

Zayn winces on the other end of the line. Clearly whatever it is, he seems hesitant to tell Louis about it. He can already feel a pit forming in his stomach.

”I don’t know how to tell you this, man. Maybe you should check twitter” is what he says instead. Louis wants to throw up. Why would twitter know about something that clearly involves him enough to have his family and friends checking up on him. He quickly moves out of bed and turns on his laptop, heart racing at 100 miles an hour.

”What the fuck is going on, Zayn?” He’s starting to panic as he watches his laptop turn on, willing it to go faster.

”Someone, uh -“ he starts, cutting himself off, as if he doesn’t know how to say it, “old pictures of you have been released. Someone sold them to the press or something. I don’t know.” He’s silent for a few minutes, waiting to see if Louis will respond. “Pictures of you and Harry, Lou.”

Louis stays completely silent on the other end of the call, watching as his laptop slowly loads up. After a few moments of silence, Zayn starts talking again. “Are you okay? It’s not a big deal, the pictures aren’t bad, people are just freaking out because of the album and -“

”I’m fine,” Louis cuts him off, heart still in his chest. “I’m fine. I’ll call you back, yeah?” he says, hanging up the phone before Zayn gets the chance to reply. He feels like he’s suffocating as he opens the browser and goes to twitter.

It takes him all of two seconds to find the article. Or one of them, anyway.

He clicks on it with shaky fingers, ignoring his phone ringing beside him again and his heart that feels like it’s about to beat out of his chest. It takes what feels like years for the article to finally load and it does nothing to settle Louis’ nerves. When it does eventually load, Louis almost empties the entire contents of his stomach right there and then. 

He’s right there. There’s a picture of _him_ right there on the screen in front of him. Right there for the world to see.

The picture isn’t the worst that could have been released; it’s from a party when they were younger, Louis’ arm around Harry’s waist and Harry’s lips on Louis’ cheek. They look like a couple, but it could be played off that they were just friends. He scrolls down the article, skimming through the words to see what other pictures are there. There’s a few more of them at parties, some of them hugging, some of them just smiling at the camera, some of them just smiling at each other. There’s one of them kissing, but it’s in the background and is so blurry you can barely even make them out. 

They could deny everything, but Louis has a feeling it won’t be that easy. Looking at the pictures, it’s not hard to see how much they loved each other. How Harry looked at Louis like he was his whole world. How Louis looked at him the same. 

_“They were together all through high school” an insider reports. “I didn’t stay in touch with either of them afterwards, but they were never secretive about their relationship back then.”_

Louis feels his stomach churn. He has no idea who sold the photos to the press, it could have been anyone that went to school with them. It’s the least of his worries though. He goes back onto twitter, scrolling through his mentions.

Apparently Harry’s fans were quick to find his social media. He has thousands more followers than he did when he’d gone to sleep, and hundreds of people tweeting him asking about Harry.

He’s never had a panic attack before, but from what he’s heard, he’s pretty sure he’s having one right now. His heart is beating a thousand miles an hour, barely able to catch his breath. He feels like he’s either going to pass out or throw up. He’s not really sure what to do in a situation like this, but he makes his way into the bathroom and turns on the shower as he strips himself out of his pyjamas and sits on the cold shower floor as the water falls over him.

-

Louis had never wanted to phone in sick to work so badly in his whole life.

The thought of having to leave his house, having to face people knowing they’d probably heard by now was enough to almost make him have another panic attack. But he also knew that he really could not afford to have the day off, and people would be talking about him regardless of whether he was there or not, so he begrudgingly gets ready for work and leaves his house and tries so _so _hard not to think about how people are going to treat him when he gets there.

He drives the whole way there in silence, scared to hear about himself on the news or that stupid song on the radio again. He can’t even connect his own music through his phone, he’d turned it off the second he got out the shower. Partly to stop the insistent buzzing and partly to stop himself from reading what everyone was saying about him on twitter.

When Harry’s career had first taken off, Louis used to worry that people would find out about their relationship constantly. He knew there was enough people who’d known about them from before that could have told the world, there was enough pictures out there to back them up. It never happened though, and as the years went on, he stopped thinking about it. Forgot that anyone else had even existed back then, other than him and Harry.

He’d been terrified to open himself up to everyone’s opinions, liked living in the shadows while Harry took the spotlight. It’s most likely a part of the reason they didn’t last. 

It’s almost worse that it happened now. The spotlight is on Harry and his relationships more than it’s ever been since the launch of his solo career, especially after the interview last week, and now Louis is right there with him. Except he doesn’t even have Harry to guide him through it.

Zayn is standing outside smoking a cigarette when he pulls into to the car park. Louis slides up wordlessly beside him, lighting a cigarette of his own.

For a while, it doesn’t seem like Zayn is going to say anything at all. Eventually, he says “wasn’t expecting to see you here today.” He’s looking at him with a worried expression and for once, Louis can actually understand.

Louis just hums in response, taking another long drag of his cigarette and thinking of any way he can stay out here for a bit longer. “Gotta pay the bills.”

He gets a small nod in response. “I’ve only been here half an hour and I already had to get away from them all,” Zayn says, nodding towards the door. “Think they’re trying to get information out of me so they don’t have to ask you about it.”

Louis isn’t surprised at all. There’s nothing his colleagues like more than a bit of gossip.

He takes one last draw of his cigarette before dropping it on the ground and putting it out with the sole of his shoe. “Time to face the music, I suppose” he says as he makes his way towards the door, Zayn following behind him.

”Hey,” Zayn says, putting an arm out to stop him just as he’s about to open the door. “You know I’ve always got your back, yeah? With anything. Don’t let anyone in there get to you, I’ve got you, alright?” 

Louis feels his heart swell to three times it’s normal size. He’s no idea what he did in his life to deserve Zayn as a best friend. “I know” he says, giving him a small smile and finally turns to open the door to the office. 

The second the door opens, everyone turns to look at him. He’d been expecting it, but he still feels his heart race. Most people quickly avert their attention, trying to be casual about the situation, others stare at him unashamedly as he walks towards his desk. He even catches two women turn and start whispering to each other.

It feels like exactly what he’d expected when he first heard the song. The way he’d feared everyone would treat him differently, scared to even look at him for too long. The room is deadly silent as he sits at his desk and loads his computer. 

He can feel everyone’s eyes on him and can hear his name on the tip of everyone’s tongue for the rest of his shift.

-

Louis finds Zayn leaning against the wall outside again when his shift is over, frowning down at his phone in one hand with a cigarette in the other. Louis doesn’t smoke anywhere much as he used to, but he finds himself pulling another one out too as he walks over to him.

Zayn looks up when he stands next to him, giving him a small smile, it seems like it’s all he can manage. “How was it?”

”Awful” he replies, picking on a loose thread on his t shirt. Zayn looks sympathetic, nodding in agreement. There isn’t really anything else to say, so they finish the rest of their cigarettes in silence.

Just as he’s about to get into his car, Zayn speaks up again. “You wanna come over for dinner tonight? I can cook for you?”

Louis actually considers it for a minute, the thought of going home to make his own dinner isn’t exactly appealing, but neither is sitting in awkward silence for another few hours, so he eventually shakes his head. “Think I’m gonna try and get some rest. It’s been a long day,” he says “thank you though, I really appreciate it.” And he does. He knows it doesn’t seem like it sometimes, but he appreciates Zayn so so much.

”Alright. Text me if you need anything though. Please don’t shut yourself out.” Zayn says before he ducks into his car, Louis following suit with his own car.

He drives him in silence again, luckily avoiding any major traffic and getting home rather quickly. He can’t even bring himself to heat up last nights leftovers for dinner, so instead he just strips down to his boxers and gets straight into bed. He does consider going straight to sleep, God knows he needs it, but he knows his family will be worried about him, having not heard from him all day, so he reaches onto his bedside table to retrieve his phone.

It takes a few minutes to turn on, but as soon as it does, messages and missed calls start popping through again. He’s about to ignore all of them in favour of calling his mum and letting her know that everything’s okay, but somethings stops him in his tracks.

Amongst all the other texts, all he sees is one. One from Harry.

”_I’m so fucking sorry, Lou”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Introducing: Harry Styles. 
> 
> Let me know what you thought!
> 
> \- r


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Really wanted to post this yesterday because how else would I celebrate the 28th of September than posting about Larry? But I was, unfortunately way too hungover to even consider finishing the chapter so it’s sadly a day late and slightly shorter than I’d hoped but it’s fine. Also, I realised while I was writing this that tomorrow it will be 6 YEARS since I posted my first ever one shot and last ever one shot on here, so that’s kinda cool. Anyway, hope you enjoy!
> 
> \- r

He’s not really sure how it happens. 

After staring at the text for almost ten minutes, mostly trying to convince himself it’s real, partly because he’s frozen still, he gets back to what he was meant to be doing in the rest place. Calling his mum. He really doesn’t know why he clicked Harry’s name instead.

He brings the phone to his ear with shaky hands, his breath hitching as he hears it start to ring. He really doesn’t know why he’s doing this, he hasn’t spoken to Harry in years, but right now he’s the only person in the world he wants to talk to. He almost doesn’t notice when the ringing cuts out.

”Louis?” comes a voice from the other end. Louis lets out a breath he didn’t even realise he was holding at the sound. God, it’s been so long. “Lou, I’m so fucking sorry about this. Is everything okay?”

All day, he’d forced himself to stay strong, to remember that everything was going to be fine. But right now, he can feel his eyes starting well up at the sound of Harry’s voice. He almost forgets to answer until he hears him timidly asking “Louis?”

”Yeah, yeah I’m - fuck I don’t know, Harry.” He finally lets out, he hears the way his voice cracks, knows that Harry must have heard it too, but he can’t bring himself to care, he needs to let it out. “It’s just so fucking scary? All day people were staring at me, it’s like suddenly everyone knows who I am or has a sudden interest in my life and like, I just Donte know how to deal with that. I don’t know what to do.”

He can feel himself starting to panic again, heart racing fast like it was earlier. “I know. I know and I’m sorry. I’m going to fix this, alright?” Harry’s voice is soothing on the other end of the line, but Louis can’t bring himself to believe that everything’s going to be okay. “Just breathe, okay? Concentrate on your breathing.”

Louis doesn’t know how he does it, how he just reads Louis like a book, how he’d known exactly what Louis needed to hear just from being on the phone with him for less than a minute. He tries not to think about it and lets Harry soothe him out of a panic attack.

Harry spends a few minutes calming Louis down, until Louis doesn’t feel like he’s suffocating anymore. Once he gets his breathing back to normal, Harry speaks up again. “Where are you?”

”Home.” Louis replies, still sounding slightly choked up. He ignores it.

Harry chuckles lightly on the other end, “yeah, where’s that?”

”London.” he replies, feeling his heart starting to race again, but it’s different this time. 

“I’m uh- I’m in London for the next week or so,” Harry starts, he sounds just as nervous as Louis feels. “Can I see you?”

It’s probably too soon, Louis isn’t entirely sure he could handle seeing Harry right now, but for some reason he can’t think of any other person he wants to be around right now. His mind is made up before he even has a chance to think about it. 

“Please.”

-

He finally gets around to calling his mum after he sends a text to Harry with his address. She answers on the second ring. 

“Louis? Honey, are you okay? I’ve been trying to get ahold of you all day.” she’s talking at a million miles an hour, clearly worried. Louis feels bad for keeping her waiting so long. 

“I’m alright. I’m sorry, I’ve had my phone off all day” he explains. It’s not really an excuse, he knows he probably should have sent her a quick text letting her know everything was okay before he’d turned his phone off, but she accepts it anyway.

She stays on the phone a while longer, asking questions like if he knows who leaked the photos and what he’s going to do about it. Louis doesn’t know the answer to any of them. Eventually, she asks “Have you heard from Harry?”

He isn’t really sure why he doesn’t want to answer her, he’s always told his mum everything, but for some reason he wants to keep this to himself. He doesn’t want to lie to her though, so he just says “yeah a little, he text asking if I was okay.” He doesn’t tell her about the phone call or the fact he’s on his way over, he just lets her keep asking questions through the phone that he doesn’t really have an answer to until she eventually has to go.

He hangs up with a promise to give her a ring the next day. 

Without his mums voice in his ear to distract him, he realises just how nervous he is to see Harry, and how little time he has to he worried about it. He has a text from Harry saying he’s on his way that was sent ten minutes ago, which means he could be there any minute, really, he’s not entirely sure where in London he’s even coming from.

He’s suddenly all too aware of the fact that his flat is an absolute mess and he could really do with another shower, but he really doesn’t have time to do anything about any of that. Instead he gets himself out of bed and throws on some comfy clothes, standing in front of his mirror and trying to fix his hair slightly. He hates that his eyes are puffy and his nose is a little red from crying, but there’s no point in trying to hide it now.

He doesn’t know why he cares so much about what he looks like, but he hasn’t seen Harry in so long he somehow feels like he has to impress him. From the looks of it, he’s not going to do a very good job.

The buzzer to his flat goes off about 2 minutes later, while Louis is fighting hopelessly with one strand of hair that just doesn’t want to sit right. He tries to ignore the way his heart is racing as he presses the button to let Harry inside the building.

It takes less than a minute for Harry to walk up the stairs to his front door, which isn’t nearly enough time for Louis to prepare to hear the knock. He only hesitates for a second before he opens the door, heart pounding out of his chest because _fuck - _Harry is on the other side.

As soon as he opens it, Harry falls straight into his arms, hugging him so tight Louis can barely breathe. Louis hugs back without even thinking about it, shutting the door behind them with his foot. He wasn’t sure how seeing Harry again was going to pan out exactly, but it definitely wasn’t this. He expected awkward greetings and talking about the situation that neither of them really wanted to talk about. He didn’t expect them to fall back into each other like the past three years didn’t even happen.

Harry pulls back after a few moments, wiping his eyes with the sleeve of the hoodie that he’s wearing, and it’s only then that Louis sees how broken he looks. His eyes are puffy and tired like he’d been crying, Louis probably looks the same. It hadn’t really occurred to him how hard this must be on Harry too. All day he’d been caught up on how scared he was, Harry must be even more terrified than he is, he’s the one in the spotlight after all. Louis is just in his shadows.

“Do you think we should sit down?” Louis eventually asks, realising they’ve just been standing in the hallway the whole time. Harry lets out a small laugh and nods, letting Louis lead the way to the living room. He tries not to be embarrassed about the empty container of take out on the table, Harry doesn’t seem to notice or care anyway. It’s easy to forget how used to Louis’ mess he is.

They both sit on opposite sides of the couch silently. It should feel so awkward, but somehow it doesn’t. Somehow, Louis feels more comfortable than he has all day, sitting here with Harry in his living room not saying anything at all.

”Do you want to talk about it?” Harry eventually asks, playing with his hands in his lap.

”Not really” Louis replies. He has a feeling Harry doesn’t either, with the way he lets out a sigh of relief.

”Do you want to watch something?” He asks instead, gesturing towards the tv. Louis just nods.

It takes way longer than Louis would like to admit for them to settle on a channel, bickering comfortably about what they want to watch until they eventually land on one that’s playing Notting Hill. Louis knows it’s one of Harry’s favourite movies and it’s only just started, so he finally stops complaining and lets him stop on that channel.

They fall back into silence as they watch the movie, it’s almost scary to Louis how quickly they went back to being so comfortable with each other. He tries as hard as he can to watch the movie instead of watching Harry, but he still finds himself sneaking glances every now and again, unable to believe he’s actually there.

If he can feel butterflies erupting in his stomach every time he catches Harry looking at him too, no one needs to know. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you thought! 
> 
> \- r


End file.
